


Great Expectations

by obfuscation



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Childhood, Drug Use, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Kid Tony, Kid Tony Stark, Non-Linear Narrative, Questionable Science...Exceptionally Questionable Science, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Underage Drinking, Underage Partying, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4061782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obfuscation/pseuds/obfuscation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Howard Stark's daughter is a huge pain in the ass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Matters of Ownership and Entitlement

**Author's Note:**

> Works are not necessarily posted in chronological order.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Toni negotiates rights to her father's best creation with someone who loves him almost as much as she does.

"Antonia, Philip deserves an apology."

"No he doesn't."

"He really does. You know Captain America doesn't belong to you."

Antonia Stark, a three foot vision of pink cheeked kindergarten petulance, hugs the stuffed Captain closer to her uniformed chest. "Um, wrong? My dad invented Captain America."

"He didn't invent THAT one." Philip tries to reach for her beloved doll again, and she jerks away from him fast as lightning.

"Well, okay, that's fine, but he's not anybody's most favorite in the way he's MY most favorite," she explains, with great patience, to Mrs. Teacher. This is the sensible thing, the CORRECT thing, the truth of the matter. Nobody else has dibs on the ancient battered old Cap doll, not anybody in all of St. Bernadette's Academy for the Gifted, and ESPECIALLY NOT buttfaced Philip, who picks his boogers and EATS THEM. Without remorse. In PUBLIC. How repugnant. ("Repugnant" is Tony's new favorite word. She learned it from Senator Grey, who comes for dinner on Fridays. It's pretty neat watching him argue with Pop. His face turns red like a tomato and he calls Pop names and Pop calls him WORSE names and Pop pours wine on his head sometimes. Mom always makes Tony go to bed early so that she can't watch but she knows how to angle the surveillance cameras in the dining room to show what's happening on Pop's upstairs TV so she never misses out on any of the good stuff.)

"No, Toni," says boring old teacher, "Captain America belongs to everyone. You need to share. That's the fair thing to do."

"The fair thing to do is statistics," she says, because this sounds like something Pop would say in this situation, and according to Pop, Pop always gets everything he wants, so. Right. "Philip is being unreasonable. He knows I won't play with any other toys, so he's got like, roughly two billion playtime options, and I only have _one,_ so if you consider the toys versus people ratio, I should be able to keep this all the time. Capiche?" 

"Antonia." says Mrs. Teacher. "I'm becoming impatient."

"WAAAAAHHH!!!" wails Philip, the FAKER. Toni knows he's faking; last week Johnny kicked him in the face and he didn't even blink. Philip just smiled through the blood dripping down his face and pushed Johnny off the swing with one hand.

"I have custody on Tuesdays; Phil signed a contract," Toni lies. She knows adults like contracts, and custody, because it gives them nice clean working parameters.

"I DIDN'T!!!!" Philip insists, that big stupid booger baby. Toni sees that glint in his eye; she knows he thinks he's winning right now.

"WhatEVER, Crocodile Tears, you don't even LIKE Captain America as much as me; you just want to watch me suffer!"

"WAAAAAHHH!!!" yells Philip.

Mrs. Teacher presses two fingers to her temple and sighs. "Toni, if you don't give Cap back and apologize to Philip before I count to three you're going to Headmaster Gordon." 

Toni is running out of options. Headmaster Gordon smells like mustard, and Phil is still crying. The act's gotta be exhausting; kid's definitely got commitment. She already got in trouble for exploding Mentos and Coke on Heather's desk yesterday. She can't go back to timeout. She won't. But she also can't just...hand over Captain America like a little chicken wuss BABY. She has to stick up for herself. The world is not a nice place, she KNOWS this, and the only way you ever really get to keep what is rightfully yours is by fighting for it.

"Mrs. Teacher, look. I'll cut you a nice deal. Phil likes Battleship best. Right?" Toni nods at the stupidest boy ever. "So I'll trade you Battleship for Cap." In a great show of selflessness, because BOOGERS, she holds out a hand for Phil to shake.

Phil slaps it away.

"You don't even have Battleship right now," snaps Phil in this perfectly tearless voice, "Heather does!!!"

"Oh, come on, Phil," Toni groans, "cut the crap."

"GASP!!!!" go the kindergarteners. Toni knows she'll get a demerit for swearing, but, really, this is just preposterous now.

"NO I LIKE CAPTAIN AMERICA AND YOU'RE STUPID AND I HATE YOU," Phil bawls.

Mrs. Teacher is fuming and the entire class is staring. What a PR fiasco. This is making Toni look pretty bad. She cant help it that her only friend is a communal stuffed toy, okay, Phil has like 900 friends, the REAL PEOPLE KIND of friends, and Toni has 0 of those, so honestly she's lonely without Cap. Why is this even such a big deal? This is definitely some power trip on Phil's part, OK, and Toni doesn't need to stand for this stuff. She shakes her head, long-suffering. She is not spending the whole day alone again. There is only one solution to this problem. 

She decides that it is best that they wrap up the day's business, because pointless roundabout negotiations are wasting everyone's time at this point.

"See Mrs. Teacher? He's being completely unreasonable. I can't work under these conditions. It's time for me to go." Toni placidly packs Cap into her backpack, and makes her way to the door. No loneliness. No more timeout. Never. "Have a nice day," she concludes, shutting the classroom door behind her. 

Mrs. Teacher is on her in two seconds of course, because, as Toni finds out, she isn't allowed to just walk out of kindergarten even though her departure solves ALL of the problems, and she is not only shoved into timeout; Cap is taken away from her, where he is promptly deposited into the tear-booger smeared hands of her now arch-nemesis. Toni is given five demerits, and a note to see Headmaster Mustard Face instead of going to first snack time. What a crock. What injustice. Everyone KNOWS Captain America belongs to her. EVERYONE. There isn't even a calculator in time out, just two walls and a lot of mind-scrambling silence, and by the time she's carted off to Mustard Breath she feels like her brain has turned to oatmeal with no bananas or cinnamon, just plain oatmeal, and Mrs. Teacher is EVIL, and Pop is going to take away her Texas Instruments, and then her life will basically be over.

The next morning Cap has been removed from the classroom. Phil looks upon her with haughty satisfaction.

"You better learn to share, Stark," he says coolly. "Captain America is EVERYONE'S favorite."

"Bastard," she snarls. This is another word she learned from Pop. "I got stuck in time out cuz of you. Better watch your back." She pops her knuckles at him.

"No, Stark," says Philip, any trace of yesterday's tears lost to the mists of memory, "you got yourself stuck in time out." She blinks at him, flabbergasted. "You don't run this school. We're all equal here."

Then Philip tosses a tiny tin shield at Toni's desk.

Toni completely loses her shit.

The resulting fistfight goes down in St. Bernadette's history, and that's how Toni gets kicked out of her third elementary school in as many months.


	2. Antonia.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some background.

Antonia Stark was supposed to be a boy—she was supposed to be born in June, and she was supposed to be a boy. She was a difficult baby to carry: she was breached and she was too small and as soon as she was able to be bouncy, boy howdy was she bouncy. She gave her mother horrible morning sickness and strong cravings for black coffee, Cool Whip straight out of the tub, beluga cavier on Hawaiian sweet bread, and cigarettes. Maria smoked _a lot_ while she was pregnant with Toni, because nobody knew any better, and because gosh but she wanted to. Menthol. Cherry flavored. She never smoked more in her life than she did carrying Toni.

At first, Toni's nursery was done up in blue and red, nautical striped and half-buried in toys she would never really care that much about, not until she realized she could take them apart and make something new with them. Her crib was shaped like a tugboat and the entire planetary system comprised her mobile. Howard reconfigured the attached music box to play _Hey Jude,_ because why not? Her name was written in huge white letters across the wall: CAPTAIN ANTHONY EDWARD STARK. Howard called her “Tony” from the moment she started kicking her little foot against her mother's spine, and they couldn't think of her as anything else. When she was born the wrong gender, Edward was thrown out, and replaced with Margaret, but Anthony became Antonia easy as pie.   
  
Of course, Howard wasn't around on the day her name was modified. He was on a boat somewhere in the arctic. He arrived home ten hours too late; the birth certificate was already signed. Maria didn't mind. She knew what she'd signed up for with Howard, and she already knew that, fetus or no, Toni was going to do precisely what she wanted to, precisely when she wanted to.

Her first word was “mine” and her second word was “WHY.” “Daddy” and “Mama” didn't come until after words twenty and twenty-one, which were “hurry” and “up,” consecutively. She ran before she walked, of course, even though her legs were weak and her stamina was worrying.   
  
Even as an infant, she was wickedly brilliant. As soon as she could anchor herself on two feet and get herself moving around the room, she discovered light switches. Light switches were an obsession for quite a while, especially those that had variable dimness settings: she would take the tiny knob in her tinier hands and twist it back and forth, eyes sparkling as she cataloged each setting.   
  
The first time she dismantled a light switch and subsequently electrocuted herself, she was three.

"Lucky she didn't kill herself," was the general consensus from all of her doctors.

"She's a Stark through and through," was Maria's shaky-handed, wobbly-cigaretted reply.

Toni read through her first electrical manual at age five; she broke her first toaster oven at four, and built her first engine at six. Everything she learned, she learned early, including how to alienate everyone who might be a decent friend to her. (Oh well.)

At seven she dressed up as Captain America for Halloween. Michael McCall, a boy she was Not Allowed to Talk To, was the only kid that didn't give her crap for it. He liked her costume. (They matched, after all, but Toni's costume was better, because she made the shield herself.)

The next year she dressed up as Peggy instead. 

Nobody knew who she was.


	3. The Nanny.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark family staff is an interesting bunch.

For the duration of her childhood, most of Toni's friends are people her father hired. He doesn't hire them to be her friends, obviously; that would be a) weird and b) out-of-character, since Howard Stark doesn't notice whether or not Toni has any friends. Toni doesn't get along very well with kids her age, because _duh._ She likes adults well enough; they usually have better stories to tell and they don't get all weirded out because they don't understand what Toni's talking about, but she isn't exactly allowed to go hunt for grown-ups to talk with. So, that being said: her only options for enjoyable company are the _very_ few Stark Industries associates who are willing to waste time on her, and, of course, the help. Jarvis is her favorite, of course, but Jarvis is running errands for her father frequently enough that most of her caretaking requires a nanny.

The only nanny that Toni ever develops an attachment to, and the only one who can put up with Toni long enough for Toni to remember her name, is a young woman named Lilliana. Lilliana is the most beautiful person Toni has ever seen, with her huge eyes and crimson smile and suede dresses, which is one of the reasons Pop hired her. Like Jarvis, no matter what comes out of her mouth, she sounds like she's making fun of people. She tickles Toni with her long long looonnnggg red fingernails and slaps Toni's mouth when Toni talks back, but even when she does that, she's laughing. Lilliana laughs all the time. She says, “Toni, life is a lotta bullshit, and okay, but like, bullshit is _funny._ ” At first, Toni thinks that Lilliana is a really cool college student or something, because she wears all the raddest clothes and is always teaching Toni how to like bands that don't suck eggs, but then one time some guys in a van try to kidnap Toni, so Lilliana has to stab all three of them. It's pretty cool, honestly, except for how pissed off her Pops is afterwards. Actually Lilliana is a genetically enhanced government agent who used to be hired muscle for a Columbian drug cartel before she turned her life around. The best thing about Lilliana is that Lilliana doesn't like ANYBODY; she is always saying mean things about people, but never about Toni. Lilliana tells Toni everyday “hello mi vida” and “you are my favorite little girl!” and sometimes she lets Toni teach her how to make things, like transistor radios. One time they build walkie-talkies together, and then they use them at the zoo. Nobody before Lilliana really thinks Toni's inventions are cool, except for Jarvis, but Jarvis doesn't have enough time to spend with her to try any of her inventions out.

Lilliana also teaches Toni all the important stuff, stuff Toni didn't even know was important, like:

        1. How to perform a color analysis. (Toni is a classic Deep Autumn.)

        2. How to do acrylic nails. Not that Toni will ever need this, as she will soon have her own stylist, but STILL. This is important Girl Information!!

        3. How to flirt with only the eyes. Lilliana says Toni is very good at this, even though she is only six.

        4. How to talk to cute boys without feeling stupid. (This obviously involves using the Eye Flirting trick.) Toni still mostly thinks boys are DISGUSTING and stupid as hell and DEFINITELY NOT CUTE, but the eye trick actually works pretty well on Michael McCall, a boy at school she is not actually allowed to play with after his dad stole the designs to one of her Pop's updated propulsion systems. Michael is, ironically enough, slightly less stupid than the average boy, but he is notoriously spoiled. However, talking to him using Lilliana's method really does the trick: she even gets him to share his Legos with her one day, and Michael NEVER shares his Legos, the possessive brat. Thanks, Lilliana!  
...course, she gets in trouble when Mom finds out they were sharing anything at all, but still. Small victories are still victories.

        5. How to tell the difference between Disco and Funk.

        6. How to not listen to Disco, because Disco is TERRIBLE.

        7. How to wear lipstick and mascara!!!!! And not forget about wearing that stuff so it doesn't get smudged. Toni is always smudging everything. She is also not allowed to wear makeup yet, though, so it doesn't really matter.

        8. How to french braid.

        9. Which Turners are the good Turners, not the stupid ones.

        10. Sylvester Stalone.

        11. How to think Bucky is more handsome than Cap, because he's dark and mysterious.

        12. What “dark and mysterious” means.

        13. What a Long Island Iced Tea is.

        14. How to get away with drinking a Long Island Iced Tea on the job.

(“You're dad's really good at this one,” explains Lilliana, and then she winks. Then she slaps Toni's hand really hard. “NO, this is not for you to drink, only me! What's the matter with you, huh? You crazy, Toni? You're _six years old!_ ”)

        15. How to kill a man with just a ballpoint pen and two gum wrappers. Toni says, “Why do you need to kill a guy with a pen when you can just use a pen that's a gun?” and Lilliana tells her, “Sometimes you'll run out of pen guns, and then where will you be?” Toni, of course, will never run out of pen guns, because she's Toni Stark and she could make one in her _sleep_ , but she thinks the lesson is pretty neat anyway.

        16. How to lie and say they did tons of math homework when really they went to the movies and saw _Rocky II_ (Toni already knows how to lie—please, she's a _Stark—_ but truthfully SYLVESTER STALONE=STUD MUFFIN. Toni doesn't know what a stud muffin is, but stud muffins make Lilliana very happy, so Toni knows they must be a good thing.)




When the kids become so mean and stupid at school that Mom decides a private tutor is probably a better option for Toni, Lilliana says, “Fine! Who cares! Our Toni is too smart for those little pendejos anyway! Fuck them!” and then she says a lot more stuff in Spanish Toni isn't allowed to learn and especially not allowed to repeat.  
  
...though, once Toni realizes she dislikes her private tutors as much as the kids, Lilliana yells at her not to be so disrespectful to her elders, but Toni knows secretly Lilliana doesn't like them, either. They're too stupid. Private tutors are supposed to be good at everything and know more than Toni knows.  
  
Sometimes Toni feels like nobody knows more than she knows, except for Lilliana, Jarvis, and her Pops, and so she's doomed to a life of stagnation and emptiness.  
  
Suck.

–  
  
Lilliana isn't serious very often, but one day she is at the mall with Toni and they're getting a makeover and she says, "Toni, I know you are a little girl, but you're gonna run that company one day, so don't ever let a man push you around. Not even your papa! _Especially_ not your papa." Then she spits.

Toni has never let anybody push her around a day in her life--anybody who tries gets punched and anybody she can't punch gets a verbal bitchslap--but that's not the thing that sticks.  
  
"I'm not gonna run the company," she says, wide-eyed. "Pop doesn't want me to. Obie wants to."

"What'd your father teach you to make all those terrible things for if you're never going to use them?" Lilliana demands. The lady coloring her hair jerks her head sideways, asking that she sit  _still,_ please, and Toni giggles when Lilliana threatens her life.

"He never taught me," Toni shrugs, closing her eyes so Stacy can brush on her foundation. "I just watch him do stuff 'til he kicks me out."

"Well," Lilliana sniffs, "if you change your mind, don't let them tell you no! Nobody at all. You're a Stark, Toni. No other six year old can build their own pen gun, not even the boys! Don't waste your life."

"Yeah, yeah," Toni rolls her eyes, because her Pop's been drilling it into her head since birth that wasting her life is the worst possible thing she could ever do.

How the heck is she supposed to know what wasting her life even is? She's  _six._

- 

Out of everyone in the world, only Toni's mother doesn't like Lilliana very much, and Toni doesn't really understand why until she turns seven and Lilliana gets fired. “Affair” is the newest addition to Toni's vocabulary, and it's way worse than any Spanish cuss word. Toni doesn't like Lilliana quite as much after that, not after watching her Mom cry into the phone, not when her Pops runs away to the North Pole or whatever for a month afterward, but still. _Still._

Toni's new nanny is a man, and is also some military-trained weirdo, and is, most devastatingly, HELLA BORING. All her nannies are the WORST after Lilliana, which is probably why Jarvis takes pity on her and starts paying her more attention.

–

She misses Lilliana for a long time.

 


	4. Common Sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problem is...Toni really doesn't understand why this is such a problem.

So, Toni's smart. Real smart. She knows this; has always known this. The smart thing is part of what makes her weird.

Maybe what makes her weirder, though, is that for all the smartness and genius and IQ she has stored up in that curly head of hers, she doesn't have an ounce of common sense to show for it.

“You blew up Jefferson Tower,” says Professor Argot.

“Um...” Toni considers his proposal, turns her head sixty degrees to the south, and nods. Yes, those are definitely plumes of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the science building. Hmmm. “Yep, yeah, that's. I think that's undeniable, at this point.”

“No, I  _know_ you did,  _everyone_ knows you did; that wasn't a question.”

“Well, an argument can be made that it was a rhetorical statement, and most rhetorical statements can be interp--”

Professor Argot looks like he's three seconds away from strangling her, which, okay, of course he does, she just blew up the science building.

“It was only the west wing, Argot, come on. That lab equipment was totally outdated anyway; I did you a favor.”

“TONI STARK,” says Professor Argot.

Damage control time.

“Pop'll pay for it, Jimmy,” she says. “You know he will.”

“No,” Professor Argot points at her. “No. You don't get to call me Jimmy today. I'm Professor Argot today. Just—what were you thinking, Toni? What the hell is the matter with you? Do you have _any_ idea how many people you could've  _killed,_ if classes were in session today?”  
  
"But classes  _weren't_ in session today," Toni says.

Argot shakes his head. "Why, Toni?"

Toni kicks her little feet back and forth, clamping her front teeth down on her thumb nail, trying to make herself as tiny and cute as possible. Is it working? She checks Professor Argot's face for any trace of sympathy.  
  
...nope. It ain't working.

“Well, me and Hank...Listen, all I'm saying is, he's probably better off sticking to the soft sciences.” She nudges him with an elbow. “Huh? Huh?”  
  
He actually turns green.

“O-kay,” Toni tucks herself back into her own personal bubble, and shrugs. “We were just—sciencing. You know.”

“I don't. Enlighten me.”

“You know, sciencing; creating—just a rudimentary particle ray with a Pepsi bottle?” She beams at him, because, okay, they hadn't meant to create a particle ray, but since the opportunity presented itself—

Professor Argot does not beam back. “You thought you could house a particle ray in a Pepsi bottle?”

Toni rolls her eyes and scoffs as loud as she can. “Psssh,  _no_ , duh. You have to encase it in--well, that was part of the issue, I mean, our resources were limited, so I would've preferred a less porous--anyway, you don't care about that; see, the _brilliant_ thing is, the Pepsi bottle was supposed to act as a kind of...” She stops, because Argot is about to have a heart attack. He doesn't care what the Pepsi bottle was for. He doesn't care about how righteous an experiment this could've turned out to be, if it'd just worked . He doesn't care what they were doing at all; all he cares about is the mess he's going to have to clean up. Toni sighs. There are paparazzi gathering on the field below them; the entire school is on the lawn staring at the firemen and the hazmat people swarming her pile of glowing, glorious destruction.

“I didn't mean to,” Toni says, uselessly.

Ugh. Pop is going to murder her. Goodbye, cruel world. You kinda sucked eggs anyway.

She kicks her feet a few more times, just to give herself something to do. “Are you throwing me out?” she asks, because even at thirteen, she's already developed her trademark masochistic tendencies.

Professor Argot opens a drawer in his desk, pulls out a bottle of pills, and pops three. “Ms. Stark, we would've gotten rid of you years ago if we'd had the option.”

Hey, that's not nice. Toni's only been in like six fist fights since they dumped her here, in the middle of rural northeastern England. “Wait, why? I'm one of the best student's you've got.”  
  
Professor Argot doesn't dignify that with a response. Toni doesn't really know why that stings, because, well, it's not like she has a stellar record, as far as  _not_ being thrown out goes, but she thought she was doing pretty well so far.  
  
"Okay, then, why am I still here?" she presses.

“Your father practically keeps this school running, don't you understand? Of course he's going to pay for the Jefferson building; he paid for half of it in the first place!” 

“Wait, so you're telling me—are you telling me he  _bribed_ you to keep me here?”

“Of course he did,” Professor Argot groans. “Who else would put up with you?!!”

Toni's little heart skips two beats in a row. “Oh,” she lets that soak in for a little while. “Oh.”

–  
  
It shouldn't be a surprise. It shouldn't bother her. She doesn't understand why it does. All of the awesome things in her life so far were the direct result of everything her father ever achieved. She's used the Stark name plenty of times to get her way in the past. It's never bothered her before.  
  
This, though...this bothers her.  
  
_Why?_  
  
-

Pop doesn't murder her. Pop doesn't even pay attention. He never says a single word about it. He does a lot of damage control. He never speaks to her once, not  _once_ through the entire thing.

Toni gets an angry letter from her mother asking her not to blow anything else up. She's extremely lucky that nobody was killed or injured. Does Toni know how dangerous playing around like that can be? Does she? Does she understand how fun lawsuits are? They aren't fun Toni. They aren't fun at all.

 _Yeah, yeah; beat that dead horse, Mom,_ Toni thinks, crumpling the letter into a ball and tossing it out the window. She's only heard that 198481401441964675628525 times from everyone in the universe since this whole mess began.

Jarvis tells her she did an excellent job handling the press, so that's one victory, at least.

Damn, that particle ray would've been so boss if it'd just worked right. Ah, well. No future in weapons technology for the Pepsi company, she supposes. 

Not that she ever liked Pepsi. Time to sell her shares. Ugh. Coke's way better. The cherry kind. 

–

Her school days are kind of empty after that—Toni'd only really had one friend in this dump, and even though Hank wasn't exactly a friend, he was smart enough to keep up with her most of the time. Now Hank doesn't want to be seen with her. Ugh, whatever; nobody died or anything. It's not like they created some horrible bioweapon that eats babies alive. Anyway, everything will grow back in no time. Not like he had great eyebrows in the first place. Or hair, for that matter.

Toni's never been particularly well-liked, but now that word's out she's not even facing real consequences, the old Stark curse rears its dark, perfectly-styled head. She already knows how to tell the difference between people who want to be friends with her because she's a Stark and people who want to be friends with her because she's Toni—she's been able to tell the difference since she was about five years old—but the number of people who aren't too frightened to talk to her at this point is pretty damn low, even knowing her Pop runs the place. Ugh. And even knowing what DANGERS SHE'S CAPABLE OF!!!!!!!!!!, people are still totally willing to talk trash about her behind her back.

Ah, well. Toni just has to brush it off, like always. No reason to ruin an otherwise perfectly excellent school year.

Still, it isn't too hard finding ways to occupy her time. The cigarette girls that hang out in the Eastman bathroom are always good for a laugh when she gets too bored not to ditch class. They aren't afraid of her; they aren't afraid of anything. They don't care who her Pop is, either. She kinda likes smoking anyway; it makes her hands stop shaking. They've been doing that off and on, since the explosion. When her hands aren't shaking, it makes working on the circuit-board for her new robot easier, which is okay. Yay. And you know, all that time she wasted doing things like eating lunch with people and, like, having fun? Well, now she can spend it on schoolwork.

Dude, she's a boss. She'll be done with secondary school by summer, at this rate. Really, the explosion was a freaking blessing. And now she knows exactly how to blow up another school building, if she should ever need to. She's had designs on Hardbrook Hall for ages; she hates Home Ec. Ugh. Embroidery. Booooooooooorrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnggggg.  
  
–

(The library is a huge, beautiful building in the center of the campus, and there is one bookshelf in the very back left corner where all the boys that refuse to wash their hair congregate. She doesn't visit that bookshelf often—she's definitely not one of the cool kids herself, but no need to do any more damage to her fragile reputation hanging out with THOSE guys, even if they are the only people in the damn school, with any common decency, that she has anything in common with—but sometimes she gets really lonely.

Sigh.  
  
That's when she reads herself a comic or two. She's too old and too cool for anything as lame as comic books, but whatever. A girl needs her vices.

She went out on an expedition with Pop once; one of those icy boat rides he spent hunting for Captain America's body. She was seven, when that happened. It was fun. To this day, she's never seen Pop happier than the time one of his people in Greenland announced they found a piece of Cap's plane. They went out and got ice cream to celebrate. Pop told her the story of how Captain America's girlfriend tried to shoot him once. That gave her a good laugh. She's only heard that story once. Nobody else in the whole world knows it, save her and Pop.

Toni knows Cap wasn't really anything like he is in the comics or in the movies, but...well, he seemed so kind. Pop said people used to beat the Captain up when he was a kid. Toni likes that. 'course, Cap was never a jerk or a fuck-up; he probably never blew anything up he wasn't supposed to; probably never lost all his friends; nobody ever told him he didn't have to work a day in his life because his Daddy paid for everything, or...still. _Still._  It's comforting, thinking that one of the world's most beloved superheroes had once been a pariah in some way or another, just like her.)


	5. Superintelligence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DUM-E screws up for the very first time.

Summer 1986: Toni is finally home from a long year at boarding school. And what a fantastic year it's been! Skipping three grades in one go, learning how to hold down tequila shots without puking all over everybody, accidentally blowing up part of Jefferson tower with a homemade Pepsi-bottle particle ray...well. That wasn't so fantastic. And not to mention the visit at Christmas time from Jarvis, which ended in the world's most intense snow-storm edition of Capture-the-Flag. Of course...none of the kids who participated in that game are talking to her anymore, but...you win some, you lose some, right? Ah, what good times, 1985-1986.

...okay, the year...has actually been kind of difficult. But whatever, she has LOTS to show for it. Tons. It's been a very productive year.

Too bad she's stuck at home now.

Ever since The Incident with the Pogo Stick (listen, she was only eight at the time, okay?), Pop's workshop is off-limits, but she's allowed to tinker with the scrap in the first garage. The second garage is where Pop's collection of hot rods are kept, and the third garage is where Happy and those guys park, but garage #1? Garage #1 is Toni's playground. She started building DUM-E's circuitry on a whim around Easter, but this garage is where she is going to finally, FINALLY figure out how to get the damn thing to start listening to her instead of arbitrarily blow-torching anything vaguely resembling her pet cat.

...maybe including the blow-torch was a mistake on her part, honestly, but...experimentation is important! She can always replace it with a regular arm instead.

Anyway, blow-torches are _rad._

–

She can't replace it with a regular arm. Somehow, as soon as the blow-torch comes out, the processor stops communicating with the rest of the device, and DUM-E goes from being just kind of dumb to being a pile of useless junk. It won't respond to anything she's telling it to do, which is bologna, and also utterly bootywack, because she _knows_ the processor's still running; she _knows_ it can hear her. The blow-torch is like...like a computer mouse. It doesn't _have_ to be attached to anything to understand and listen to her commands, so there's no _reason_ her commands aren't garnering a response.

“Why won't you work, you piece of shit?” she demands, kicking its left wheel, not even really registering the way it sparks at her in half-hearted retaliation.

While her back is turned, because she's wondering whether or not she should just scrap the whole thing and start over... _again,_ DUM-E tips itself over, it actually _tips itself over,_ by it _self,_ and gives a pathetic little whine, reaching its little stump of an arm blow-torch-ward. So the processor's still running; it's not totally brain dead or anything, it just...doesn't _want_ to work without the blow-torch.

“Oh,” she says, and KABAM! It hits her. “OH.” She kneels down, and pats the stupid thing's wheel, the one she just kicked, and shrugs. “Sorry buddy. I'll replace that soon, okay? I'm not going to leave you handless.”

DUM-E nods its little stump arm at her in acknowledgment, and Toni practically whoops for joy. Holy shit. Holy _shit._ When, over the course of building this goofy little thing, did it become self-aware enough to freaking _pout?!!_

 _Good old me,_ Toni thinks, hopping to her feet and skipping over to her workbench, where DUM-E's fingers are laying all discombobulated and waiting for a palm to attach to, _I really am a genius._

Oh, this is big. This is _biiiiiiiig._ Toni's programmed fun little A.I.s before; stuff that could play checkers with her when she was lonely, or that knew how to make her perfect cup of tea. Simple stuff. But she hadn't developed anything that could observe and _learn_ yet, and here she'd done it in the _garage,_ while on Summer vacation, listening to frickin Cindy Lauper. ON ACCIDENT.

Now all she has to do is take DUM-E apart again, to remind herself exactly what she'd actually programmed into its doofy robot brain on that caffeine-fueled night last April.

–

“So Pops,” Toni says, over dinner, which she really isn't supposed to be interrupting or anything, because Pop and Obie are having an Important Discussion about something she doesn't care about, just like every other night ever.

“Toni,” says Pop, startled as he always is whenever she decides to barge into his life without permission. His brow automatically crinkles into annoyance, and he jams his ever-present cigar between the curves that construct his frown. “What'd you do this time?”

“Nothin',” she says, kicking at the marble floor, and winking at Obie. He smirks back; says _Hello Toni_ all full of suspicion, shaking his head fondly. Good old Obie. Obie never minds when she interrupts.

“Oh,” Pop grunts, waving the cigar around again, like a conductor's baton, “so you're making a nuisance of yourself for no reason at all. A _gain_.”

“Pretty much,” she shrugs, shoving hands into her greasy pockets. “You fellas doing anything important?”

“No, Toni; we're just discussing money,” says Obie, which means, _no shit, we're doing something important._

Pop looks pissier by the moment. Toni can't even begin to hold back her grin.  
  
“Oh, that's nice,” Toni shrugs. “Pop. _Father._ I did something EXCELLENT.” She holds out her gloved hands in a huge arc. She waits for him to ask for more. He doesn't, of course. Ah, well; there's no diminishing her moment of glory. “Pop, you know that stupid robot I been dicking around with since Spring?”

“What, the purposeless arm?” Pop pours himself more gin. “I try not to think about it.”

“Me neither,” Toni nods. “But Pop, I got it _pouting._ ”

Pop takes a sip; passes the bottle to Obie. “Pouting, huh?”

“POUTING,” she nods emphatically. “I took out its blow-torch and it started pouting at me and it wouldn't _stop_ pouting 'til I gave it a hand!”

Pop sighs. “And is that what you're gonna spend the rest of the evening doing, if I don't drop everything _I'm_ doing right now to go look at the imaginary friend you've been wasting your time on?”

Obie goes, “Howie, come on,” but Toni knows Pop's just ribbing her again. She knows better than to interrupt, after all; she knows the rule, and she knows she's broken it.

“ _Duh,_ ” Toni insists happily. “This is gonna revolutionize artificial intelligence, Pop, I just know it. It _learned_ pouting, okay; I don't—really know _how,_ yet, but I will; I programmed it to pick up on what it observes out _side_ of itself, and POP, it actually WORKED.”

“So you taught the damned thing to pout--”

“By example,” Toni nods sagely. “I am _basically_ God.”

Pops puts down his tumbler of gin and rolls his eyes at Obie, and then he throws his old man cardigan around his shoulders.  
  
“Alright, Toni,” he sighs, “show us your pouty arm,” and he breezes past her with all of the long-suffering patience he's always shown her.

–

After the fourth time DUM-E fails to properly extinguish the fire Tony started (with the now unnecessary blow-torch) next to the trashcans, Pop's over it.

He does not fail to catch the way the robot perfectly mirrors Toni's slumped shoulders and droopy head when he insults them both, though, and neither does Obie. Huh. Well. The damn thing is learning by example, isn't it? Howard sure hopes it's learning something other than that spot-on Eeyore impression from the only intelligence _he's_ ever successfully brought into the world.

Jesus Christ, he almost feels bad for the poor kid. She did just program one of the most advanced robots he's ever seen, after all, even if it can't do anything right. It doesn't really matter if it isn't immediately useful, he supposes. It will be someday, if Toni would just get her act together, and stop wasting all of her time on nonsense.

“Huh. Glad to see you finally learned a thing or two at school, kiddo,” he shrugs. “You oughta enter it into a contest, or something.”

(She still shouldn't have interrupted, though.)

He's already turned away from them at that point, so he doesn't see the startled grin that splits his daughter's face in half. Obie gives her a thumbs up behind her Pop's back, and gives her shoulder a good squeeze. Nobody sees DUM-E watching her, learning how its creator reacts to rare, beautiful positive reinforcement.  
  
DUM-E can't smile, since it doesn't have a face, but anyone who meets it knows right away when it's happy.

–

(Someday, many, many years later, Clint will look at the little robot arm; he'll watch it crash into a wall a few times and spill coffee all over important paperwork. “Why don't you just trash that thing?” he'll ask, and DUM-E will wilt in defeat, taking a blue tooth speaker down with the coffee pot it's holding.

Toni will snap a rubber-band at Clint to shut him up.

“Listen, Bird Brain,” she'll say, “nobody's allowed to abuse my babies but me. Got it?”

And maybe someday she'll explain to somebody exactly what her thing with DUM-E is, but...but she doesn't really need to, does she?)

 

 


	6. Happy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toni, 14, parties it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got some serious underage partying and substance abuse in this one, folks. Sorry. In fact, any of the crap you'd expect a young celebrity to deal with...it's here. Fair warning.

  
  
  
  
Holiday banquets bite the big one.

Toni's going to escape this party come Hell or high water.  
  
No matter what she wears, somebody ends up making fun of her in some tabloid or another. Now that she's fourteen, Mom finally hired a REAL stylist, thank GOD, but she still sees it in their beady little shark eyes, those photographer's eyes, the _hunger_ : she hates it. They smile and ask her questions and yell at her, and okay, no other fourteen year old in the damn world has to deal with this stuff; she's a KID, they shouldn't be yelling at her like that. They shouldn't be allowed to compliment her the way they're complimenting her, either. Sleazeballs. She knows it's wrong. She's a kid, damnit. Just a dumb kid.  
  
(Except she isn't. Toni's never been some dumb kid; some tiny celebrity with gigantic brown doe-eyes and dimples and a permanent, wonder-filled grin as she takes in the splendor that is her glamorous life. That's what they _tried_ to make her out to be when she was younger: innocent. Sweet. America's darling. Except...well. Come _on._ Her father's a fucking war monger. She failed at darlinghood from the get-go. It started with the blonde ringlets. America's _darlings_ were supposed to be blonde. She definitely was _not_ born blonde _._ She is the classic, stereotypical naughty brunette child. America's darlings were supposed to be pretty as a picture. She isn't ugly, no sir, her Pops'd never marry a lady ugly enough to give him homely babies, but she was no model. She's short, for one thing, _very_ short, and elfin, and perpetually oil-stained around the fingernails, and the only positive comments the paps ever make about her these days concern how _feisty_ she can be. Oh, yes. Tiny Little Ms. Stark, feisty heir to billions, a complete disaster in the making. What kind of woman will she possibly grow up to be? She's four _teen,_ and they're already pegging her a future fuck-up. See that rogueish grin? She knows _just_ what she's worth. She knows so _much._ Has this girl ever been a child? Did she ever have a childhood?  
  
Toni hates the concept of childhood, honestly. Like anybody with half a brain could ever really enjoy being a kid. Booooooooooring.)  
  
Marina (that's her stylist) picked out a nice burgundy dress for her. It's the Fourth-of-July, after all, always a big day for her Pops; she needed to be in something patriotic, and blue just makes her look _dead._ So they'd gone with a nice classy burgundy, the color of red wine. Yeah, they're gonna talk about that. A girl in red always gets talked about, no matter what. The sleeves are gigantic and puffy and brush her earlobes, it's got a nice peplum flair at the waist and a short hemline that hits respectively one inch above her knees, and a stupid bow at the neck that sweetens the whole thing up. It's shiny, and stiff, but not scratchy, and it emphasizes the natural rosiness of her olive cheeks and the rusty highlights in her gigantic, wildly permed hair. She feels stupid, but she doesn't walk around like she feels stupid. She'd picked up somewhere, as a little girl, that the worst thing she could do to herself was admitting that she felt stupid. _“Always be comfortable in your own skin,”_ someone once told her. _“There is nothing more threatening and more powerful than a woman who knows her own worth.”_ Toni liked that lesson, and repeated it to herself every single morning. The paps could use that confidence to insult her, to call her cocky or a brat or spoiled or whatever else they wanted, but at least they couldn't call her vulnerable.

She is repeating the mantra to herself now as she waves to the cameras and shakes a few hands and laughs at jokes that aren't funny being made at her expense by people thirty years older than she is—people, she thinks with a grin, she could sue in half a heartbeat if she didn't have her father's reputation to worry about. _Don't piss 'em off,_ was Obie's lesson for her. _The better they like you, the more you'll get away with._

“What are they doing, letting her run around dressed like that? What a little slut _,_ ” a senator's daughter “whispers” as Toni passes by. Toni turns her head just a fraction and beams a thousand-watt smile at the girl. This girl is blonde, and leggy, and pretty, and perfect. She has never blown anything up or built the prototypes for medical robots that will save lives one day or beat the shit out of little boys that tell her she shouldn't be allowed to build robots. Her dress is shorter than anything Toni's ever worn in her life.

Toni blows her a kiss, and laughs at the way her face contorts into a scowl, and the paparazzi catch that, too.

–

The only decent thing about these bullshit parties is the quality of the drink. Yaaayyy drinking. She can handle anything with a little bit of fermentation in her blood.

Toni had her first shot at age twelve, and it was Howard's fault. He left her alone with a few of the guys from the base, and they thought it'd be funny. Well, it was funny, but not for the reasons they'd expected: Toni, though at that time a mere 4 foot 8 weighing 79 pounds, could hold her liquor like a champ. It took her two swallows of tequila to start acting like a bozo, but even then, she sat down and turned one of their calculators into a television remote control. When Pops returned, they were betting she couldn't make a pair of their shoes into a walkie-talkie, and she was explaining just how easy that actually was.

She got the worst scolding of her life when Pops smelled her boozy breath, like she'd had any control over any of that situation anyway, like Pops _cared_ at all about what she did, and Mom wouldn't let her go with Pops unsupervised on jobs anymore. After that, Jarvis or Obie had to always, _always_ be with her. Toni doesn't mind Jarvis or Obie—she likes both of 'em a hell of a lot better than either of her parents—but she also knows exactly how to get away with whatever she wants even when they're guarding her, so she knows, and _they_ know, babysitting her is a waste of time.

She's not sure what happened to those Air Force guys that got her trashed the first time, and she doesn't want to ask...not because she's worried about them, no fucking way. (She's more worried Pops just let it slide. Ha. Good old Dad.)

Toni's vaguely aware that this whole drinking thing is probably not kosher, but she doesn't really care. Pops was drinking like a fish when he was her age; he says so all the time. Anyway, she likes tequila and she liked how funny all the guys thought she was, and she decided right then and there that being funny was the best thing she could possibly be at all times. Bad shit that happened to you wasn't nearly as bad if you were laughing at it, and it was practically _fun_ if everybody was laughing with you, and in her fourteen years of life, she knows nothing makes anything as funny as lots and lots of tequila.

Now she's a seasoned professional. She's in the VIP lounge, where the paparazzi aren't allowed in. Obie's in charge of her tonight, because Jarvis is stuck with her Pop doing something IMPORTANT, except Obie's preoccupied, busy arguing with some general or another about something she just doesn't even _kind of_ care about, so she's found a handful of the cutest, most innocent-looking guys to relax with. One of them is a pretentious, know-it-all chump named Justin, one of the undergrad scholarship winners from MIT (who—okay, _please,_ doesn't know half the awesome stuff she knows); another two are marines, and the last one is actually one of the catering staff. His name is Harry, and he's totally fired now, but he's too smart and too cool to be a damned caviar bitch anyway. He clearly has no idea who Toni is or how old she could possibly be, which is a rare, magical find in Toni's shitty stupid life.

They put away two bottles of smooth, stingy vodka before Toni throws up all over Hot Marine #1's dress blues. Harry holds her hair back as she pukes.

That's when Obie remembers he's supposed to be looking out for her.

...oops.

–

Toni, Harry, Justin, and Marine #2 (whose name, Toni decides, is Alf, because dude he looks just like the fuzzy space alien) escape Obie's wrath by climbing out of a window, and into Justin's Porsche. Justin's got a _nice_ car, but not as nice as Toni's. Harry is the only one sober enough to drive the thing, and it's only a two-seater, so Toni and Alf prop themselves up on the back as Harry speeds off.

They wind up somewhere south of Santa Barbara, on a cliff face overlooking the black, cold Pacific. To their right stands the skeleton of a huge mansion; it's going to be a beautiful house soon, when construction has finished. Bums swarm the place. They're friendly, though, especially after Justin gives them the half-empty bottle of Jack he had stashed under his front seat.

Harry lays a blanket out over the edge of the cliff so that Toni doesn't dirty her dress when she flops down on it. Alf opens another bottle of champagne and Justin cuts a few lines. Harry won't let Toni do any, and the look on his face is a little bit scary when he says so. Toni resents that a little bit, but it's kind of neat, the way this babyfaced beefcake nobody waiter thinks he can protect her from anything, so she lets it slide.

Save for all of the stupid, arrogant shit Justin keeps saying, it's actually kind of a nice night, until the cops find them and try to arrest Justin for kidnapping her.

That goes over REAL well with the press.

Better to be part of a real story than idle gossip, she supposes.

–

Some weeks later, Toni receives her first bouquet of flowers from Justin, and a freaking apology from Harry. An _apology._ Dude, Toni knows that night was probably the most fun this poor guy will ever have in his life, and he's _apologizing_ to _her_ for it. Her. She was the one that invited him to party with them in the first place!Why is _he_ apologizing to _her?_ He writes his sweet little letter to the corporate office, and Jarvis is the one that forwards it:

_Hi, Toni,_

_Sorry we got you in trouble. I had no idea who you were thought you were just a fancy girl being nice to me at a party. I'm a complete idiot. Hope you are ok if there's anything I can do let me know. I told your bodyguard it was all my fault so maybe he won't be so hard on you about it._

Toni loses her mind at that—he's talking about Obie; Harry thinks friggin Obie is her _bodyguard._ What a _doll._

_I tried to apologize to your parents but there real hard to get ahold of, so I just wrote them a letter too. I had a lot of fun though thanks for not letting me get arrested and I hope you are successful._

Then he adds on, and his writing is sloppier here,

_I hope you take better care of yourself. I'm really sorry about everything._

He signs the whole thing _Harry Hogan._

Toni blinks at the letter for a while, and then summons Jarvis. She needs to find out who the hell this loser is.

–

His name is Harry Hogan. He's from New York. He's nineteen years old, and he has a criminal record; the charges have to do with illegal street fighting. He dropped out of high school at some point, even though his grades were fantastic. He started waiting tables when he was fifteen years old, and he has no family at all. She doesn't know how he washed up in LA, but that catering gig was probably the closest thing to a respectable job this fool will ever have.

And she lost it for him.

Damn.

Toni gnaws on the end of her pen 'til it looks like ABC gum.

“Jarvis,” she says after a while, "We still got Wolfgang Puck's number?”

Since Toni got the guy fired, she might as well get him a new job.

–

Years pass. Toni leaves LA, comes home again, loses her parents, meets Pepper (who isn't Pepper just yet), does her first stint in rehab, and takes control of Stark Industries. She forgets all about the sweet boy she met at the party that wouldn't let her dirty her dress or do hard drugs.

She's twenty-two and young and stupid and _really_ high when she wraps her Lamborghini around a Malibu telephone pole, but luckily Harry is none of those things when he pulls her bleeding and dazed from the wreckage of her front seat. He walks to a seafood restaurant to call an ambulance—not a _good_ seafood restaurant even, what a brave soul; even half-dead, Toni can smell the fume-clouds of imitation crab it expels—and he sits with her until it comes.

She's perfectly fine; heck, if it weren't for the whole hitting-a-pole-and-spinning-off-the-side-of-a-ravine thing, the crash wouldn't've been that serious. And she was pretty far gone, so she was plenty relaxed when the car made impact; she probably won't even have whiplash.

Well...okay. Maybe whiplash. And her nose is definitely broken. But please, she's had worse. She blows shit up for a living.

She just can't quite believe a stranger would run down the side of the ravine after her to check if she was alright.

“I mean, like, what if moving me had killed me, you know?” she raises her stitched-up eyebrow at him. “Shouldn't you've called the ambulance _first_?”

Harry shrugs. “Just did what I thought I needed to.”

She picks at her hospital gown. “Thanks for keeping the press out, too.”

“Your butler helped,” he shrugs again. Shrugging is his thing, apparently.

Toni tries to pay him. He won't take it.

“Nah,” he shakes his big round head. “I wouldn't've made it in LA if you hadn't got me that job all those years ago.”

Toni's bruised face crumples all up. “Job? What, are you a Stark employee? Don't tell me you're a janitor, then I'll _really_ feel like shit. We don't pay you Cracker Jack. You _have_ to let me pay you.”

“Engineer, actually,” he says evenly.

“What? Shit, _you?_ I'd know you,” she rolls her eyes. “You're not half stupid enough to be an engineer.”

Harry doesn't smile at that, but he seems the type that doesn't smile _ever,_ so... “Nah, nah, I kid, I kid. Name's Harry Hogan. We almost got Justin Hammer arrested that one time.”

“No _way,_ ” Toni breathes.

“Yes way,” Harry nods.

“What're you doing now?” she grins at him, even though it hurts. She can't help it. Aw, Harry! She remembers Harry. “Still waiting tables?”

Harry looks out the window. “Nah. I'm private security now. Pays better.” He looks back at her, and his eyes are a warm, comforting chocolate brown. They crinkle up at the edges, almost like they're happy. Happy. Hah. Toni wonders if this guy has been happy a day in his life. He's nice enough, but an unhappy person knows an unhappy person when they see one, and Toni _knows_ this guy is Not Happy. “Supposed to be at work now, honestly. Boss's probably real mad.”

Silence falls. Awkward. Toni bites down on her lip, and watches Jarvis struggling with all of the cameras flashing outside of her hospital room door. It's a whim, maybe a stupid one, but Toni trusts her own intuition more than she trusts anyone else's tried and true logic.

Hey, she's probably still high anyway. If she's not she's got a lot of painkiller coursing through her system, right? So if this proves later to be a bad idea, she can blame the substances.

“You like your boss?” Toni asks.

Shrug #3. Yep, definitely Harry's thing. “Kind of a dick, honestly.”

“Well, I'm about a million times worse,” Toni sighs. “You'll learn to love me, like everyone else does.”

Huh. Harry seems unconvinced. Wonder why?

“I'm _way_ better-looking too, I'm sure,” she says. “You should see me without these stitches.” She tries waggling her eyebrows. Huh. Her face is pretty swollen. Oh well, she's still cute, probably. “Pay's better, too.”

“I'm sure there are plenty of people on your staff better qualified than me. You don't need to do me any more favors,” Harry says.

“I don't need _staff,_ ” she rolls her eyes. “Obviously, I need a driver. Especially one who can handle...any...interesting...situations we might find ourselves in, if you know what I mean. Any takers?”

She turns to address the empty room. “Anybody? _Anyone_?”

Harry doesn't even smile a little bit. He doesn't even react at all.

“Aw, come _on,_ ” she pouts. “Be my driver. Clearly," and at this point she gestures as expansively as she can, being broken and all, around her hospital room, "I need one. And--AND!--I come with dental insurance, Harry. _Dental_ insurance. You know what dental insurance is?”

He deadpans. Or...he continues to deadpan. He makes standard deadpanning look like the laughter of a helium-drugged thirteen-year-old. He's a  _wall._

"It's this magical thing where anything you have wrong with your teeth? Poof, gone.  _Aaaalll_ better. And you know, they say your teeth are a reflection of your overall health, and since you were a boxer and all, I mean, I'm sure you need at least _some_ work...let's do the responsible thing here, okay? Let's just be responsible."

"I'm a security guard, Stark, not a driver," he says cautiously.

"Well, that will come in  _extra_ handy, in case I get myself in trouble!" She drops her voice to a low purr. "And clearly, I do  _love_ trouble." Then she winks, winces because OW, and settles on a beguiling, busted-faced, super duper hopeful grin.

He looks away from her, opting to frown at the melee outside her room instead of her big puppy dog eyes. “Well...” A camera flash floods the room like lightning. “I do have a cavity.”

Toni's beam goes supernova. “See? _See_? We can fix that.”

–

And that's how Toni hires Happy.

(The nickname comes later.

This fool _never_ smiles.)

 

 


	7. Kidnappings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A handful of Toni's kidnappings, as explained to Steve, by Toni.

Like any babychild genius billionaire, young Toni is kidnapped several times. This is not unique, and none of the incidents are particularly memorable. Even years later, when she is thrown into that Afghan cave, the kidnapping itself is only important because it leads to the invention of the armor. But as kidnappings go...honestly, hers haven't been that exciting. Life defining? No. No way.  
  
Well. That isn't true. Afghanistan is certainly life defining. But everybody knows everything about Afghanistan; hell, there are books written about it, aren't there? But good old Steve, reading a book isn't good enough for him, oh no.

Steve wants Toni to talk about things. He wants to know about _all_ of the kidnappings. He says talking about it will help. She doesn't _need_ help, though. It was just one fucking panic attack. Just one.  
  
Or two. Or...three. This week.

...two of which happened today.

-

Kidnapping Howard Stark's Kid:

A List in Chronological Order, As Told To Steve Rogers, Who Asked For It, Because He is a Nosy Pain in the Ass.

1\. April 21 st , 1977

So I'm real young; I'm...four? Maybe? And my nanny, some friend of my mom's—no, I don't know her name; nobody get any ideas, don't try to take revenge, not that you ever would, Saint Steven, but Natasha, I don't know about her, just, don't repeat this to anybody else, okay?—is dating some lowlife mafia nobody. He's not a smart guy, but he thinks he's got a few bright ideas stored up in his tiny little head--his head was _so tiny--_ ; he knows if his pushover girlfriend kidnaps me, Pops'll have to dish out big big money for my return. So, I'm just a little slip of the thing; she takes me out for “ice cream” and I end up in the back of boyfriend's shiny black Lincoln. First they take me to Gemco to sedate me with a couple of coloring books; I convince them to buy me an erector set instead. Ha. Suckers. They take me to some apartment in Queens and Criminal Nanny makes me a box of mac and cheese, while boyfriend's on the phone, trying to convince one of Pop's grunts to let him talk directly to Pops. Nobody takes them seriously. I spend a really nice afternoon watching cartoons with Nanny and Cousin Vinnie NoFuckingBodyImportant, like maybe four hours. Only reason it takes that long for anyone to rescue me is because nobody takes the boyfriend's threatening calls seriously, until Jarvis noticed I hadn't tried stealing anything out of Pops's workshop the entire day. Then Jarvis comes and gets me alone, all by himself. He knocks boyfriend out with the macaroni pan and the nanny just starts bawling like a banshee and begs Jarvis to go easy on her; it was all boyfriend's fault. Jarvis lets her dry her tears on his hankee and then he waits with all of us til the cops arrive. She turns herself in. It's all kind of anticlimactic, honestly.

Pops didn't know I'd been kidnapped until August when we were on vacation in Madrid and him and Mom got in a fight because I wanted to ride the ferris wheel by myself and she wouldn't let me. My old dad didn't understand what she was so worried about. I mean, I guess I didn't either; you'd think they'd be more worried leaving me alone with nannies after that instead of fellow tourists, but. You know. Whatever. Parents, am I right?  
  
2\. Februaryish, 1980 

This kidnapping doesn't even warrant talking about. Some environmental advocacy group kidnapped me to convince my Pops to shut down a manufacturing plant in some tiny Japanese fishing village nobody's ever heard of and DEFINITELY nobody lives in. We're talking a population of, like, 100. Please. Like my dad would've ever compromised a manufacturing plant simply because _I_ was compromised. The Stark private police wiped those goons out like nothing ever happened. I think I was gone for a grand total of forty-five minutes. Pops never even got their message; morons, I don't think they even got to talk to Jarvis. Amateurs. _Amateurs!_ I'm Toni  _Stark!_ Anybody who'd screw up a kidnapping _that_ bad doesn't deserve remembering. Didn't care that much about those little fish in that little stream, obviously, since they hardly put any work into planning this hair-brained scheme at all.

Actually, they were pretty cool. They listened to pretty good music in their hideout, at least.

...seriously, Steve, do you really want to hear this stuff? It's all so...so... _mediocre._

3\. 1982  
  
Next I'm kidnapped by one of Pops's industry rivals; like, this guy, him and my Pops were going to be business partners eventually, but political nonsense happened, you know how it is, and—oh, yeah, I was totally friends with this guy's son. Ha. Ah, well. Anyway, they like me so much they threaten to keep me. Pops tells 'em they might as well since I keep getting myself nabbed off the street. I don't even know if there was a ransom? I think this was actually basically a kind of blackmail incident; I didn't really know the particulars, and nobody wanted to fill me in. I, um...I actually liked them a lot, that family. They were good to me. They read to me at night; it was...it was fucking, ha, it was _Sweet Valley High—_ oh, _Sweet Valley?_ It's like, it's a stupid high school drama, I don't know, who cares? You don't care about _Sweet Valley High,_ Steve, I promise. Anyway, okay, this is rich; I guess I developed a CLASSIC case of Stockholm syndrome: 9-year-old me would've filled an entire graduate thesis, for sure. So I actually asked my mom if I could stay, and I mean, this guy's son, I really liked him; his name was Michael, and Mom was like...she said to me...  
  
...actually, you know what? Let's not talk about this.

4\. July 4 th  , 1985  
  
This time I'm kidnapped by The Brotherhood of Mutants. You know them? Yeah, you do. I mean, I don't disagree with what they stand for, because...yay, human rights and all of that PC bullshit, but their _methods..._ anyway. I don't—I mean, I have no idea really why they were doing it? It was pretty well-organized; this time they actually got me out from under Jarvis's nose, which was basically impossible. They let him live, and everybody took that as a sign they were only doing this for some kind of backdoor publicity; getting their voices heard and all that. They—they weren't wrong, I guess? They did get a bit of publicity, and they only asked for, oh, twelve thousand bucks I think? Nothing even KIND of crazy. But this was a legit kidnapping; they blindfolded me and zip-tied me sausage-style and drugged me with the _good stuff,_ and I never did find out where they were keeping me. But I met Erik Lehnsherr—you know, the nut goes by Magneto? That was kind of cool. He was scary as SHIT, but he didn't like my dad, and I thought that was funny. I thought it was goofy how he wanted to bitch at _me_ about my dad—I think...yeah, I definitely sassed him, I think I was like, “Don't you think you're wasting your breath? What makes you think he's going to listen to _me?_ ” But then this big-ass bowling-ball looking dude comes in and threatens to break both my arms if I won't call Daddy, and to prove he's telling the truth, he breaks the arms of the guard that's _watching me._ Magneto just stands there letting his boys tear each other apart to prove a point. Totally nuts, and so effective! That guard was a jerk anyway; the, uh, heh-heh, psychological games would've worked better if I'd actually liked the guard. So, anway, they have me call my Pops on his private line, right? But Pops is off Capfishing. And at first they don't believe me that I can't get through to him; they think I dialed a wrong number, and so Magneto explains they're gonna break my fingers first, but I'm so over being ziptied and stuff I'm like, “If you don't believe me you can talk to them next.” So I give Juggernaut the phone and he says, “Give me Howard Stark, I have his daughter,” and the secretary tells him for the FIVE MILLIONTH TIME that Howard's on a remote fishing trip somewhere in the fucking _arctic,_ and they've been trying to contact him for the last twenty-four hours and nobody can. He's off the grid. Do they want to talk to Mom? No, says Magneto, they don't want to talk to Mom, so I tell 'em they're going to be stuck with me another TWO WEEKS if they don't. Hahahha, they REALLY don't want that, so then they get MOM on the phone, and mom agrees to pay the twelve thousand bucks if they'll just let me go without any fuss. They won't. She offers 'em thirteen. They don't want thirteen. They don't want any money at all. They want people to know they have the power to effect important people like my Pops. So you know what my mom does?

My mom _laughs_ at them. My mom laughs at Helmet Hair to his FACE, or, okay, audibly over the phone, and is like, “You think kidnapping my _daughter_ is going to intimidate a man like Howard Stark?” That's all she has to say. That's _it._ Magneto threatens to torture me and film it, and for a second I'm scared that might actually happen, except Big Man's looking at me like he might throw up, because I'm pretty sure he never meant to break anybody's arms, not even the guard's. I mean, I am like eleven years old and tiny and probably pretty pathetic looking, and like, here's my dad, off on what they probably think is some swanky-ass fishing trip, not even caring that I've been kidnapped by crazy people.  
  
So then Mom makes Aunt Peggy call us. NO, STEVE. NO PUPPY DOG EYES. You asked for this story, it's your fault. Okay, so Aunt Peggy negotiates some kind of agreement. Turns out 30,000 bucks was the price they were willing to exchange me for, and that's what Auntie agreed to.  
  
So then I think I see Magneto FLOATING, which I, totally logically, at the time, attributed to being high as a kite, because that was back when life was normal and people couldn't _fly_ unless they were on scary kidnapping acid or whatever they gave me _,_ and he put the blindfold back over my eyes, and I thought he was going to break my arms or whatever but then he just...cut the zipties, and explained to me that they were going to do something to me that would put me to sleep. I'd wake up at home.

He also, like, told me my Pops was a horrible person. You know, the usual stuff. I don't remember anything else after that.

Turns out the publicity wasn't really the issue. There were rumors circulating through the Mutant community the old US of A was experimenting on mutants for military use. The Brotherhood wouldn't tolerate it, and Professor X couldn't get ahold of Pops, and...Old Magnethands wanted a simple yes or no. Dunno why he thought Dad'd know anything about that; he wasn't...not by the 80s, SI'd abandoned most biotech, so...ugh. Ew.

Pop wasn't letting that stuff happen, I'm sure of it. I mean...Obie, though...I don't know. Maybe Obie. Maybe? I.  
  
I need to look into this. Let's look into this. I don't know.

….OKAY! I'm drinking. You drinking? No? Of course not.  
  
...I'm drinking.

5\. November 12 th , 1992

Ha! This was Hammer's doing, fucking asshole. Gave us a run for our money, but back then, I still had...I still had Jarvis and Jarvis could fix _anything_. I. Okay, so fucking _Justin_ thinks _I_ stole some ri _dic_ ulous blueprint for some—I don't know, some _mediocre_ bullshit...computerized...cable radio signal amplification _thing, USELESS,_ that nobody would ever need in a thousand _years,_ and so to _get me back for it,_ he hires a bunch of triads to take me _out of my bed_ while I am SLEEPING, _my_ bed, _my bed_ down the hall from _his freaking own guest bedroom—_ yeah, this bitch had his own _guest_ bedroom, IN MY HOUSE, and he fucking hires a bunch of assholes he's _never even met_ to kidnap me, and then they DO, except they kidnap HIM too and try to get money out of our parents for BOTH of us. Fucking idiots, I'm nineteen years old, so my—ha! Hahahah, oh Pops. So my dad threatens to take it out of _my_ trust fund for getting myself into this mess in the first place, and I mean, fair point, my mistake, thinking Justin Hammer was my _much less_ talented, snaggle-toothed friend—blech, friendship with him, I feel nauseous just thinking about it—are you having sympathy nausea? I think you are, I see that nauseous sparkle in those baby blues—I mean it wasn't a REAL friendship if the only thing keeping you there is your shared coke habit and a lot of fucking sympathy, but—what was I saying...? OH. Right. So Pops is like, “Pay your own damned ransom, Toni, I'm tired of your shenanigans,” and Justin's like “WAH WAH THESE MOTHERFUCKERS BETRAYED ME, because NO ONE in the history of EVER has EVER BEEN BETRAYED by the _international crime organization they hired to betray their best friend with_ ,” and so then like, whatever, we're rescued, I kick Justin in the balls, thus begins our lifelong rivalry, whatever bla bla bla nobody cares, and Pops comes up to me saying, “Toni, do something with your life, you're wasting your life, did you steal that boy's nonsensical drivel? Starks don't do that, how are you supposed to run this company without two brain cells in your head, bla bla _bla_ ” and we got in this huge fight and then the next day he and my mom died. So...yeah.  
  
6\. I'm not talking about the cave.  
  
7\. The rest of the kidnappings, you've been around for. Any questions, Steve?  
  
...Steve. Ugh, Steve. Come _on._ Stop _looking_ at me like that. I'm _fine._ Toni Stark is _always_ fine.  
  
Always.

 


	8. Capsicle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find Cap. Toni has emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Also starring cameos by random Marvel characters because why the hell not.)

“I want a Coffee Bean,” says Toni.

“For the last time, Toni,” Flatscreen-Pepper says, “we are _not_ putting in a Coffee Bean.”

“Millennials _love_ Coffee Bean. Think of the revenue. Think of the New York youth we'll be providing jobs for. There's an art school like three blocks away. I love art students. I love the way they get angry and graffiti my buildings and tell me how much they hate me. They keep me _grounded_ ,” she protests, dropping another olive into her martini. Mmmm, extra spicy. Yum. She takes a sip. Wait...no. Hmm. Too much vinegar. Not yum. “Who ordered these olives, Pep?”

“A Millennial.”

“It was Bobby, wasn't it.” Toni sighs. She flicks the screen to open a videochat window with Bobby. She taps the side of her glass with two chipped red oil-stained fingernails. “Too much vinegar, Bobby.”

“Sorry, Boss. You wanted to mix it up,” says Videochat-Bobby. “We'll stick with Safeway next time.”

“Safeway?” Toni's nose wrinkles. “What's Safeway? Is that a new...heirloom...breed?”

“So far you've liked them better than anything imported, Ma'am,” says Bobby.

“See? Grounded.” Toni considers her glass, and nods decisively. “Huh?” goes Bobby. “Okay, then,” goes Toni, “we'll stick with those.” Bobby is an intern. Toni has no clue whose intern Bobby is. So what. Toni likes Bobby. He never tries to hand her things. Bobby knows how to make a mean martini, and he can instantly freeze cups with his hands, which is a hella cool party trick. She found this out at the corporate Christmas party last year. Now she lets Bobby order her olives. Mutants are cool. _Cool_. Heh-heh. She switches back to Pepper. “I like Millennials. We're putting in a Coffee Bean. We're making Bobby manager.”

“Our contract is with Peet's. We're putting in a Peet's. Millennials don't care about this stuff, Toni. Who is Bobby?”

“Then our Peet's had _better_ offer coconut milk. I don't like soy anymore. I like coconut milk now. We're going to carry coconut milk. What do you mean, _Who is Bobby?_ Isn't he one of yours? He was at the Christmas party. He does olives.”

“Toni, did you really interrupt my meeting with Ferrari because you've switched to coconut milk? Or is this about olives? Why are we talking about olives?”

Toni scoffs. “You didn't want to talk to Connie anyway; she's so competent and pleasant to be around. You'd much rather waste your time arguing with me about nothing.”

“I resent that,” Connie Ferrari, Corporate Attorney, calls from over Pepper's shoulder.

Toni reigns in a wince. Connie's not actually supposed to be hearing any of this. “Oh, hey, Connie; how's your old man?”

“Still dead, Toni.”

This wince isn't quite as cooperative.

“Good, good. Anyway, look, the coffee shop on the first floor is an extremely important issue, Pep; we can't have just any coffee shop representing the face of Stark industries—bad, DUM-E!”

Toni swats DUM-E upside the head. It's trying to steal her olives. It must've heard her complaining about the vinegar. That isn't something she included in the programming. Why is DUM-E trying to steal her olives?

“Shoo,” says Toni. DUM-E sulks and wheels itself back into a corner. It picks dejectedly at a pile of scrap tin.

“I'm hanging up,” says Pepper.

“You can't turn your back on this thing forever, Potts!” Toni points her glass very forcefully in Pepper's screen-direction. Then she spills martini all over the keyboard. Oops.

“For God's sake, Toni, are you _drunk_? It's 8 a.m.--”

“Hey, it's only 8 a.m. if you woke up this morning,” Toni says. “For me, it's--” she checks her watch. “It's officially 68 hundred hours.”

“ _Toni,_ ” Pepper groans. “Please. What are you freaking out about now? Is it the Peterson project? Because we— _I—_ worked that out weeks ag—”

“The Peterson project? Please. No, you're right, hang up, it's nothing,” Toni lies, pulling up the plans for Stark Tower again. A Peet's Coffee, seriously? Nobody drinks Peet's anymore; that's so 2012. Nobody drinks Coffee Bean either, but hell, that's so 2000s, it's practically retro-chic by now. Toni's in a scramble. Pepper's going to hang up. “Why haven't we talked about the carpeting on the fifth floor? Why haven't we discussed that?”

“Because you told me that if I ever bothered you with something as pointless as carpeting again you'd sell yourself back to the Ten Rings.”

“I—did say that, didn't I.”

“I prefer hardwood myself,” Connie calls helpfully.

“See? That's why I like her, Pep; unlike _some people,_ she's useful,” Toni says, except she's kind of losing her train of thought, because Nick Fury is texting her again. His message reads, “you're a goddamn child.” Just like that. No capitals. Again.

“Toni, are you ignoring...you-know-who?” Pepper demands. Oh, crap. There it is: her business tone.

Toni hastily throws her phone across the room. “Hey, it's not ignoring someone if you read the texts. I'm choosing not to respond. JARVIS, block any incoming calls. Or texts. From you-know-who.”

“Yes, Ma'am.”

Toni picks up her screwdriver and twirls it around a finger like a baton. “See that? _Now_ I'm ignoring him.”

“ _Toni,_ ” Pepper groans.

Ms. Ferrari seems unimpressed with the interruption, but Toni can see the touch of concern in her long-time associate's eyes. Aaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww. Sweetheart. “We've got another meeting scheduled next week,” she says kindly. “We all know the zoning rights'll still be there tomorrow, since you already own half of Manhattan.”

“Don't you dare,” Pepper says, and Connie actually _giggles_ under the force of her glare. “Answer your phone, Toni, and call me back later.”

Toni slumps under the weight of her emotional burdens. “ _Fine!_ ” she grunts, but not before threatening to fire Pepper for insubordination. Pepper cuts the connection first, but Toni only has three seconds to stress about it.

JARVIS's voice is permanently neutral when he informs her, “Ms. Stark, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is currently attempting to break in through the first story kitchen window. Should I allow him to continue?”

“Ugh, _Coulson_? I'm not good enough for a personal break-in with Fury anymore?”

“Unfortunately, Director Fury prefers to use the front door. I believe you deemed his methods 'boring.' Should I request a meeting with him instead?”

“UGH, _no,_ ” sighs Toni. “JARVIS, don't let Coulson eat any of my Tagalongs.”

“I'll direct him to the lab, then.”

–

“The kitchen window, Coulson? Are we in fifth grade?”

Coulson, smelling suspiciously of peanut butter and chocolate, isn't fazed. He never is. “Hello, Ms. Stark,” Coulson starts, but hell if Toni's going to let a cookie thief have this moment.

 “Yeah, yeah, they found him,” Toni says, mouth full of olive. She swallows, watching Coulson closely for any hint of emotion, but of course there isn't any. “I know.”

“They didn't tell you,” he says.

“No, I'm pretty sure they did, since that's what I just said.”

Coulson's eyebrows moosh together above the rims of his reflective glasses, which is almost a whole human facial expression. Or maybe Toni's just really drunk. That could be. She doesn't super care either way. She's working pretty hard to stay as numb as she possibly can until this whole business blows over.

“What?” she mutters, because now Coulson's just standing in her doorway doing nothing. “Are we throwing a party? Was I supposed to call the caterer or something?” She frowns. “Are we in charge of the memorial? Are we expected to throw together some kind of PR extravaganza? Can I dance on the wing of a Mustang? I'm not agreeing to this if I can't dance on the wing of a Mustang.”

“Stark...”

“Coulson... _Mustangs._ ”

“You're being remarkably difficult today.”

“Just today? You _wound_ me, Agent.”

“We're not in charge of a memorial.”

“Okay, fine. What do you want?”

“He's alive,” says Coulson, and Toni's heart stops. “Fury was trying to tell you.”

When Toni sets her glass next to the repulsor she's been tinkering with, she doesn't realize it's upside down. Her hands have gone tingly, but these tingles aren't martini tingles. These are goosebumps vomit precursors-to-a-panic-attack tingles. She's been irritated for hours with the news, sleepless with it, because the reality of Captain America was never something she thought she'd actually have to deal with. Captain America wasn't _her_ project, after all, that was all Pops. Sure, she loved the _idea_ of Captain America; she'd had the fictional crush to end all fictional crushes well into her late teens, of course, like everyone else...but...her father lost years and years and years of his life hunting for Steve Rogers's body. Despite the fact that Stark Industries had always funded research expeditions aimed at collecting information about the Super Soldier's death, even as a child, she never really thought they'd find anything.

Much less a body. Much less _alive._

Toni is at a loss. Is Captain America, like, a hundred years old now? Has he been in hiding all these years? Has he just...gone on living his life while Pops wasted months—missed her _birth—_ hunting for someone that never even went down in the ice? Not that she'd really blame Cap...going through a war is weird and terrible and it does weird terrible things to a person. She understands wanting to run away. But still. But _still._

(It's always been easier to blame Captain America than Pops. Up 'til now, Captain America was hardly real.)

Toni slides off her stool and stretches her arms above her head. She has to maintain some semblance of control here. “I was joking about the Mustangs, but seriously, can we make the Mustangs happen?”

–

Coulson spends the duration of the car ride explaining Cap's excavation. The army of doctors and scientists and biologists and assorted other -ists that SI's research department and SHIELD deployed have determined that Cap must've gone down and flash-frozen somehow; he's in amazing condition, and after the initial defrosting, doesn't seem to show much in terms of bodily damage at all. He's been unconscious since they first found him. Taking him out of the ice had been a strange process for everyone involved. Toni asks who authorized SHIELD participation in the whole thing. Coulson deadpans at her.

 At least the Captain wasn't avoiding their family on purpose, then.

SHIELD is keeping the Captain in some kind of containment facility: it's done up all clean and retro-like, the tiny cubicle where Cap sleeps tucked into a high-security vault in what Coulson explains used to be one of the most secure banks in Manhattan. Now SHIELD uses it to hide super secret really cool stuff. Toni is impressed with their creativity, and the attention to detail; if anyone standing inside the cubicle looks out the windows, they get a beautiful view of Manhattan, 1945, printed in high-res onto a canvas backdrop. This is some straight-up Disneyland-status set building.

Gorgeous. _Weird._

“To ease the shock,” is Coulson's needless explanation. “They took him off life support three days ago. He's been in and out ever since.”

Toni still isn't sure what she actually thinks about the whole thing. “Has anybody else thought about waking up Walt Disney, since we know this whole cryogenics thing works just fine?”

Coulson blinks at him. “You're a non-sequiturial ace, Stark, but that wasn't one of your best. You're not distracting yourself effectively at all.”

“It was meant to distract _you_.”

“No, it wasn't. Truthfully, if we're talking about the de-freeze, we don't know what does and doesn't work, really,” Coulson says steadily. “None of his vital signs are comparable to a standard, non-modified human body, but knowing what we do about the serum, and super-humans in general, he seems healthy enough. We think his major organs are intact, but we're not sure how long his brain was running without oxygen. We're registering moderate brain activity. We aren't sure what kind of damage we're dealing with, if any, when he comes to." Toni sucks in a breath that's too loud, and Coulson turns his face away.

Well, that's another great big giant bag of NOPE. Toni fixates, unblinkingly, on the rise and fall of Steven Rogers's beautiful chest.

“You're taking this hard,” Coulson observes, at length. Toni's not sure what his point is.

“Hey, if he wakes up a vegetable, we could always try cloning him,” Toni shrugs dismissively, except the thought makes her stomach do post-martini flipflops. Pops would've done that, probably, if the opportunity presented itself.

“The specialists are confident he'll be functional,” Coulson continues. “We're searching for living family and acquaintances now.”

“Any luck with that?”

“Luck? No.”

The inadequacy Toni feels is profound. “Peggy's still around somewhere,” she says, useless.

The cell is very quiet; whatever the cubicle's walls are made of, it's soundproof. The whole situation is unnaturally still: Steve Rogers's prone, Ken Doll body on the bed in its too-small t-shirt and Dad Pants, the soft static buzz emitting from an ancient radio somebody's modded into a wireless streaming device. They're broadcasting an episode of something called _The Adventures of Father Brown._ It's a cheesy detective show. Did Steve Rogers like cheesy detective shows? Not did... _does_ he? Toni marvels at the realization that, once he's awake, he can answer that question for her.

If his brain works. If he isn't some kind of zombie.

“Do you think he'll have amnesia, like... _Casablanca-_ style?” Toni cocks her head to the side. “What the hell will we do with him then?”

“I'm sure Fury's got something figured out,” Coulson says, and it isn't exactly pointed, but Toni wonders if he likes that idea any better than she does. He's Coulson, so it's difficult to tell, and maybe it's wishful thinking on her part, because at least that would be one person on her side, if he really does disagree. She's pretty sure Coulson isn't allowed to disagree, though, so it's probably a moot point even wondering.

She smacks Coulson on the back, right between the shoulder blades. “Ah, Coulson. Always so reassuring.” She lets out a long sigh, and turns away from the cubicle and everything inside it.

So Cap's alive. Fine. Swell. Cool.

It's a Tuesday. She's reached her limit. She doesn't have time to deal with this right now.

–

When Toni is well and truly drunk several hours later, head cradled in the lap of her half-constructed Mark VII, she asks JARVIS to pull up a private chat window with Fury.

“Don't weaponize him, Nick,” she begs. “Don't do it. Don't hurt him.”

The next morning, face mashed solidly against the armor's left foot, Toni has no recollection of ever sending the message, and of course Fury won't mention it.

Instead, he saves the message in a classified personality profile nobody ever sees. He never forgets she said it.

–

 


End file.
